NancyJohnson

Aah, just spotted this. Because it's apparent the GED has developed a bit of a fault - it's at Rocky Road at the moment being looked at.

I'd been a subscriber to the US magazine Alternative Press for a very long time; my sub stopped a few months back. I doubt I'm going to start rereading these, so wondered whether anyone would just like them; they form a comprehensive journalistic collection of alternative/indie/noise but from a US perspective. Decent journalism, album reviews etc. Seems a shame to just put them into the recycling. There's an awful lot, certainly ten years+ of copies, plus some special editions. This isn't a collection that can be mailed, so if you want them, you'll need to drop by and collect (Crowthorne, Berkshire). Don't want anything for them (maybe a nice bottle of red).

While not strictly bass related, I was just reading a short piece about Joe Strummer's Fender Telecaster; 1966, black over grey primer over sunburst. He used it pre-Clash through to the last gig he played prior to his death. My wife remarked (while I was regaling her with the information), that I would never have kept anything for that long and just stuck with it, because betterment of gear is in my nature (viz. GAS) and I see little gain in vintage kit. Aside from Brian May, I really struggled at that point to come up with more than one or two people (see below) who've used the same instrument night in, night out, for pretty much their entire (long) career. I wasn't even certain that the Hofner Macca plays once in a while is from his time with the Beatles. Joan Jett (the white Gibson Melody Maker): Francis Rossi (the Telecaster with the hole in it), Anyone care to add? Not people who just play Jazz basses (ie Geddy Lee)...anyone who is still using the same gear now as they did 40/50 years ago.

In non-musical purchases, I bought a television. Been doing up the lounge for a while and have been tracking the specific model for a few weeks, John Lewis price dropped overnight, so pulled the trigger about 6.30am today. Musically there's nothing I want/need that's actually readily available from any retailer.

Going for the hat trick here, I have Hamer FBIV, a model that at last estimate accounted for 'about 25' models. Elsewhere, my Lulls...the JAXT4 ('a few') and my oversized NRT5 ('one of two'). I suppose Lull can just keep making the latter two, but the Hamer, while more prodigious, won't be made any more.

I'm actually tempted to say I'd go for that. Nice.

There's a little subjectivity on the word outshone; there's the implication that the artiste's sales have blitzed that of the original band or whether creatively (from a personal perspective) the solo material is somehow better than that of the original. A handful of names came to mind immediately; Rod Stewart, Donald Fagen, Paul Weller, but the main one for me was David Sylvian. The guy's output since ending Japan/Rain Tree Crow has been pretty stellar. Expansive, exploratory, but lest we forget, patchy in places. I adore early Japan, those first three albums, but it was very much diminishing returns for me, I fell more out of love with every album, but the bulk of what Sylvian has done is completely different from that croony sub-Roxy type of thing that was happening at the end. Large instrumental pieces, straight pop songs and installation material. He's certainly outshone Japan from that perspective, but I doubt he's outshone from a sales/unit/££ perspective.

Paul Young, AKA Ol' Wheezy.

I went a long, long time ago, some time before it became the fashionable and rowdy stag weekender destination of choice. From memory, it was hideously cheap to get completely off your face that we actually came back with money.

I especially love the version with the smoothie maker accompaniment.

Years ago, the original Nancy Johnson played a gig to a soundguy and a lone barman. We were asked to step in because illness had caused a band to pull out. This was about 24 hours beforehand. Turn up on the day, the headliners had now pulled out as well. The promoter had found an acoustic/cajon duo (bit of a mismatch TBH) and assured us tickets had been ore-sold. The duo played to us four and departed citing a long journey (Bracknell to Basingstoke, sigh) and work next day, so the place was empty. We didn't get a Grauniad review, happily.

The point I was trying to get over wasn't so much about the switching, more about if I'm gigging/recording, then I'd prefer to do the whole session on just the one stringset, be it a four or five. I've played a six string once, in a shop in Landaan. Played a seven string Conklin when I was demonstrating for EBS at a trade show 20+ years ago. I just found that the high register extended range was unnecessary for me; I mean, Steve Lawson does very well off it, but in a three piece punk band, well, it's way too many strings.

I've got both and have previously switched between 4s and 5s. While I don't necessarily experience issues switching between the two, live or session, I do prefer just sticking to the one. I don't know that I could step up to a 6...that high C string. Just too unbasslike.

I've seen plenty of stuff about bass players using guitar-configured heads and cabinets, but is it really a myth that we should only be using bass-configured gear? Not purely from a tone perspective, but also from a frequency-centric perspective? I mean by this, if I stuck my bass into a (for instance) Fender Twin Reverb and played at volume, honestly, would it fry or damage it? Back in my formulative years, I just remember being steered towards the dusty back end of the shop by a guy in our local music store, who regaled me and my dad with the rhetorical quote, 'Oh no, those are guitar amps, you need a bass amp.' This comment has stuck with me for 35+ years. I should hasten to add here that I've never run my basses through anything that's not built or sold for purpose.

Levy's polypropylene extra long, 2" width on every guitar. Tried the extra wide Levys ones, but they looked ridiculous.

Irrespective of the manufacturer or the country it came from, if you go back to many recordings from the 60s/70s - when the gear was fundamentally new - the bass sounds terrible. Consequently, there's little to endear me to vintage/old gear ir the price old stuff sells for.

As a kid, we all knew someone who had easy access to 5th generation copied porno on VHS cassettes. A mate of mine was very keen to show me a recording of something he thought I'd find hilarious but for all the wrong reasons; popping the tape in, there were trailers for forthcoming porno films. The trailer in particular featured a blonde woman on a boat with two guys. There was an America-accented dialogue with references to a 'double-banger sequence you'll never forget' and the accompanying music? The theme from the Nicholas Parson's vehicle, Sale Of The Century. It obviously etched itself onto our addled teenage minds. I was out with him last night and 30+ years later it still gets a mention, one us us apeing the narrative while the other hums the theme tune.

I've been looking for a decent first run Hamer Cruisebass for longer than I can remember. There's a couple up on eBay at the moment, one is in shocking condition and the other is being sold by multiple sellers in Japan (suspect!).

That's really nice. More pics please!

Like Volkswagens?